


I Had a Dream of the Past

by Istealurfrenchfries



Series: I Spy [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Blind!John AU, Blindness, Car Accidents, Character Death, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Nightmares, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-23 16:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11406405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Istealurfrenchfries/pseuds/Istealurfrenchfries
Summary: “But I can’t see you,” he protested.“You don’t need to see me, baby.”  One of the hands ghosted over his forehead and smoothed his hair back.  “I’ll always be here.”--It's one week out of the hospital for John, but suddenly he's plagued by another worry.What if he forgets Alex?





	I Had a Dream of the Past

**Author's Note:**

> Had a little bit of a hard time characterizing John in this, so I hope I did him justice.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: Now, I'm not speaking for anyone with a blindness disability with this fic. I am fully aware that for many, it's not necessarily a disability so much as just a different way of living. But I'm writing about a character who has just lost quite a lot and am focusing on the frustration/grief of becoming suddenly disabled. Just wanted to put that out there. That being said, if anyone who does have more experience with this than I probably do sees anything too unrealistic, feel free to enlighten me. Thank you.

Most of their friends believed that Alex was the worst one to deal with when he was sick.  In reality, it was John.  John, who had the itch to help people at all times.  John, who couldn’t handle the mere thought of being useless.  John, who had spent his entire childhood having his illnesses and injuries neglected by his father.

When they left the hospital, Dr. Ross insisted that he use a wheelchair, and Alex was reluctantly in agreement with the decision.  John secretly(well, not so secretly, in Alex’s case) wanted to punch the both of them for the suggestion.  It was in defiance that he tried to walk on his own a day earlier, and that had ended in him stumbling around on crutches that he no longer had the hand-eye coordination to use.  And so he resigned himself to the fucking wheelchair, condemning himself to the life of a cripple.  

“This is just temporary, you know.  I’m not staying in this thing,” he adamantly repeated.

“I know,” Alex murmured soothingly as he wheeled him down the hallway, “It’s only as temporary as it takes to get us into an Uber.”  

It would be more difficult that way.  John still had to use the crutches.  He couldn’t be completely on his feet.  Alex would have to help him and it would take twice as long to get anywhere, but he didn’t care.

“I hate this.”

“I know.  But you’re gonna do just fine, baby.”

* * *

 

_The world was spinning - he could feel it.  His stomach lurched and twisted painfully.  The only thing to be seen was a blur of color - the light from a streetlamp could be distinguished, maybe, but everything else was an ugly, mixed grey.  He could feel the spit dripping from his bottom lip from his inability to keep his mouth closed, and the tears leaking from the corners of his eyes from the sheer force of the movement.  It kind of felt like a roller coaster.  John never did like roller coasters very much._

_And then the spinning stopped, but it was abruptly replaced with pain.  White hot agony bloomed throughout his body.  It started at his head and spread outward, slow and intense, like he was watching his own body break._

_His hair was in his face, effectively blocking his vision.  It must’ve fallen out of his hair-tie during the ordeal.  John managed to wrangle his hand free from where it was wrapped up in his seatbelt, doing his best to ignore the way his body protested the movement.  He reached up to brush it out of his eyes.  He needed to see the damage, see the extent of his friends’ injuries.  He needed to help.  Someone needed to dial ‘911.’_

_But when he tried to shift the hair from his face, the strands loosely fell down into his lap instead of settle back.  He pulled his hand away and in it was a large chunk of long hair that was too dark and too straight to be his own._

_John’s hand started shaking.  He dropped the hair like it was fire and looked up in search of its origin._

_Martha’s blank, dead face stared back at him.  Her body was twisted all wrong and her expression dead and parts of her scalp bald.  Humerus, clavicle, ulna, radius, multiple carpals, cervical vertibrae - all of them were broken from John’s limited view._

_It was her hair._

John lurched forward with a strangled scream of terror that got caught halfway up his throat.  His eyes flew open, but there was nothing to be seen.  This was the only way that he could tell that he was even awake anymore.  

This was the fourth night in a row.

John’s sight had been compromised for several weeks now, but his dreams were still wildly vivid in color.  When he’d been in the hospital, he had dreamed of Alex.  During his coma, he’d heard his lover’s whispered words, even if they didn’t make much sense at the time.  He’d dreamed of Alex’s dark hair when it turned messy from him pulling at it too much, and his eyes when he got focused on work, and even all of his anxious rambling tendencies that annoyed everyone else.  

But now he was home, and the only images greeting him at night were those of nightmares.  All he saw anymore was Martha and twisted, broken metal and shattered glass.  

“Baby?  Hey, hey, I’ve got you,” it was Alex’s tired voice off to the side of him.  Two arms slipped around him from the side and his breathing stuttered and shook.  John hadn’t realized that he’d been groaning in pain until now.  He shuddered and turned to reach out for Alex, suddenly desperate to know exactly where the other man was.  His palms first hit fabric, and upon more investigating, John felt the smooth expanse of Alex’s chest underneath his sweatshirt.  His hands were shaking, but he slid them up to find Alex’s face.  He’d been doing this ever since the accident - trying to map out Alex’s face to compensate for his inability to see him.  

“I’ve got you, turtle,” Alex soothed, and John could only give a tiny, relieved whimper at the sound of his voice.  The blackness surrounding him was disorienting and if he wasn’t careful, he might lose himself and never come back.  He felt his head and shoulders being cradled in comforting, thin arms.  Alex.  Alex was the only tether that was keeping him grounded.  Without him, John was afraid that he’d float away.

“I...Mm’ lost,” he struggled to articulate.  Christ, was this how Alex felt every time he was this anxious?  

“You’re not lost, John,” Alex murmured, thankfully understanding what was trying to be said.  His voice was calm and reasoning, if tired.  He didn’t treat John like he was stupid for having such worries. John gave up touching Alex’s cheeks and threw his arms around his boyfriend’s shoulders.

“I’ve got you right here,” Alex whispered and gathered him up closer.  He felt a hand stroke his own cheek - most definitely Alex checking to see if he was crying.  But no, John’s face was dry.  He hadn’t cried since they left the hospital the week prior.  It wasn’t that he was trying not to, he just _couldn’t._  He didn’t feel the eminent pressure behind his eyes that normally meant tears.  That in itself probably wasn’t healthy, considering the circumstances, but he didn’t care.  No, instead what John felt was a very real, very crushing panic that left him gasping for air like a man who was drowning.  And yet, with all the intake, he still felt like his lungs were empty and his chest cold.  It was as if someone had wrapped barbed wire around his chest and every breath only caused it to tighten.

“John, slow down,” he heard Alex insist, and his voice was just sharp enough to grab John’s attention, to pull him out of the dark waters that he was flailing in.  “You’re breathing too fast.  You’ve got to slow down for me.”

Didn’t Alex know that he couldn’t?  He was drowning, and there was no air in the water.

“Can’t..Can’t see,” he whined in frustration.  He felt Alex shudder but was wrapped too far up in his own head to realize the consequences of what he’d just said.

“I know, baby.  I know you can’t,” was his mournful reply, but then he was just holding John closer and stroking his back.  “Can you breathe with me?  I know you can, baby.”  This was the same exact thing that John told Alex all the time during his panic attacks, and now he understood why Alex always needed someone to remind him how to breathe.  It felt impossible.

He dragged in a ragged breath and listened as Alex counted out loud for him.  

_One, two, three, four, five._

A shaky exhale.  

_Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq._

Again.

_Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco._

“That’s it, just breathe for me,” Alex encouraged him, and John was torn between feeling childish and feeling relieved at the subtle praise.  The images from his nightmare didn’t go away though.  He couldn’t see - there was nothing to replace them now that he was awake.  He didn’t yet know how to deal with the frustration of not being able to just open his eyes and fucking see.  

“Do you want to talk about it?” Alex’s voice was tentative and open ended, allowing John to evade the question if he so chose.  And he had so far on the occasions that he’d woken up screaming in his boyfriend’s arms.  He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead against what he was pretty sure was Alex’s shoulder.  A hand cupped the back of his neck and made him feel contained.  

“I can’t get that night out of my head,” John finally said.  His voice was croaky and cracked with disuse.  He paused, trying to make the words in his head align in a way that made sense, “She’s never coming back.”  

“No,” Alex inhaled, “She’s not.”

In a desperate attempt to remove Martha’s broken body from his mind, John tried to think about Alex.  He pictured his hair and his nose, his far too sharp hipbones and his bony knees.  He thought about the long scar on the back of Alex’s right shoulder blade, caused from a fight he’d gotten into back on Nevis.

Except his need to focus on Alex for comfort turned into something else.  His heartrate elevated into an anxious discomfort all over again.  He couldn’t see Alex, he could only remember him.  But memories faded.

_What if he forgot Alexander?_

“Baby?” his boyfriend prompted, an edge of worry undertoning his words.  John hadn’t realized how his breathing had gotten harsh again, or how he’d started to squeeze Alex in a death grip.  If Alex was in pain though, he didn’t say anything.  “Come on, what is it?  Talk to me.”

“What do you look like?”

A beat.

“What?” Alex asked.  “It’s only been a few weeks.  Surely-”

“I’m gonna forget you,” John stammered, squeezing him tighter like it would somehow ease the burning tension in his own chest, “Oh God, I’m going to forget you, I’m gonna-”

“John, stop,” Alex’s tone turned sharp and it was enough to pull his attention.  Two hands came up to frame his own face, “You’re not going to forget me.  I’m right here, and I don’t plan on going anywhere.”

“But I can’t see you,” he protested.

“You don’t need to see me, baby.”  One of the hands ghosted over his forehead and smoothed his hair back.  “I’ll always be here.”

John took a breath.  Found Alex’s shoulder and pressed his face against it, relishing in the warmth that radiated from Alex’s skin through his shirt. Felt a hand rest at the back of his head.  He hadn’t felt this panicked and out of sorts in his entire life, not even when he came out to his father.  At least then, he’d been halfway out the door to New York and had clear plans for the future.  Now he was just disoriented and lost.

“Tell me anyway?” he asked in a quietly hopeful voice.  Alex sighed and shifted like he wanted to disagree, but something must have stopped him because then he was talking, his voice a soft whisper in John’s ear.

“Alright, um, I’m five-foot-nine.  My hair’s black and stupidly overgrown because you won’t let me cut it-”

“You’re not very poetic at this,” John muttered sulkily, but he managed a small smile.  The barbed wire encasing his chest didn’t fall away, but its vice loosened and he could breathe again. Enough to allow him to lick his wounds until the next time it attacked.

“Hush.  Now, ah, my eyes are brown, and you keep saying I need to eat more, so…” he trailed off with a reluctant sigh.  For a man of so many words, Alex certainly struggled to describe himself.  John felt him shift abruptly.  “You know what? Explaining myself is boring.  I’m boring.”

“Alex.”

“No, shh, I’m not done.  Describing you is far more interesting, dear Laurens.”  A pair of lips touched his forehead.  The loss of his vision didn’t stop John’s face from heating up.  “You’ve got some gorgeous hair.  It reminds me of my mother’s hair, but I don’t know if I’ve told you that before or not.”

The abrupt change of subject probably should have annoyed John, but instead, he felt the urge to press himself closer to Alex.  So he did.  

“Like, it’s really soft, and I hate how you have to have it put up all the time for work, because I love it when your hair is down,” Alex started talking again, and his voice changed from hesitant and awkward to something much more natural. “And your eyes are hazel, but like, when you’re tired or sick, they’re more brown.  And when you’re happy, they’re really green.  But not just green either, a Caribbean amber green.”  John had been reassured multiple times by Alex that his eyes had, in fact, retained their color, even if their functionality had been lost.

It was strange to hear his own features being described with so much attention to detail.  To know that Alex had really paid attention to him, to the way he acted and looked and felt.  John found himself regretting each time he’d ever accused Alexander of being absent and ignoring him.  It had been his go-to argument on several occasions when he’d thought Alex had been spending too much time at work.

“And your skin is fucking beautiful.  I know you think your freckles are awkward, but they’re really not.  I’d say they look like stars, but that’s so cliché.  And you, John, are far too good for cliché.  They’re more like-”

“I love you,” John cut him off.  He felt pressure in his chest again, but this time it was out of affection for the man holding him at three in the morning, “I really love you.”

“I love you too,” Alex said, then paused. John felt himself being held tighter, “I’m really not going anywhere, turtle.”

John prayed to a God he didn’t believe in that Alex was right.  

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated!
> 
> I'm 'Istealurfrenchfries' on Tumblr(because I am technologically stunted and cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to hyperlink directly to it). You can always chat there!


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